Improving Your Creative Writing (1) - hooks, sentences and characterisation...

As an English tutor, I'm sometimes asked to help students with their creative writing.  So I decided I would post a piece of my own creative writing with some commentary to help students with their own writing.

PART ONE:

Quest lay on his bed. 

It had been a difficult day, and, as usual, he was depressed.

In the darkness, he drifted off slowly to sleep and, as usual, the voices of monsters began to arrive.  They weren’t the kind of monsters that were easy to see.  Sometimes they were invisible.  But they always had something to say – “You’re nothing” – “You failed me” – “Why do you exist?!” 

In the opening sentence I have tried to create a "hook" to interest the reader.  What do you notice about the first sentence?

What do you notice about the different kinds of sentences I've used in next two paragraphs?

And what do you notice about the characterisation?

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